Julian: Hey everyone. Thankyou so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have StefanDeeran, co-founder and COO of Vendelux, finding better B2B events, fastersearch for your clients, track competitors, and Maximize event Marketing roi.Stephan, so exciting to chat with you not only because of your background andyour experience as a founder, but also the space that is so fascinating.

We're all, as, as businesses and asfounders, we're all trying to figure out ways to connect and, and make the mostout of the, the time we spent in those connections. And it's always moreexciting to talk about, especially when with the marketplace founder as myself,as as a founder utilizing a Mark marketplace kind of model as well, kind ofwhat you do and, and how you go about improving it and, and catering to bothsides of it.

But before we get into all of. What wereyou doing before you started the company?

Stefan: All right, well firstof all, Julian, thanks for having me on the podcast. This is great. Yeah. Soimmediately prior to founding Vendelux, I was working at Shutterstock, which isa global image marketplace running their platform solutions division, actuallywith my co-founder now here.

So we were doing partnerships withGoogle, Facebook companies like OpenAI in like kind of the AI space beforegenerative AI even became a thing. So really on the cutting edge of technologythere. And prior to that I was at two venture backed startups in New York City.So kind of seeing how, what it's like working for startups working for a largepublic company and, and now doing my own thing.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. And, and Iknow one of the companies, you went through an acquisition you've went througha couple acquisition at this point, and I, I'm always curious for founders whogo through that, transition and how was the acquisition process. And would youdo anything different from that, from those experiences?

Stefan: So, both of theventure back startups that I worked at prior to Shutterstock were acquired.They were acquired after I was long gone. So I'd like to think I have played arole in that. I think actually one of the companies. Was acquired by a companythat I had done a partnership with, so I guess I played a role in that to somedegree

But yeah, it was I, I basically joinedboth of them right after they were around a million in ARR and helped themscale up to 10 plus million in arr. So I kind of like an initial scale phasewas when I joined and what, what I had experienced doing. Kind of had the sameexperience at kind of a startup within Shutterstock.

Yeah. And the problem solutions team,taking it from a few million. Much more than that. 10 tens more than thattowards the end. So, at Vendelux this is the first time ever going from zero toone and then, one to 10 and beyond which is actually the hardest, hardest phaseof the journey. Yeah. But yeah, I think everyone kinda has like their phase ofa, of a startup life that they, they focus on.

And for me, I really like that kind ofinitial built. Yeah. Days getting the, getting the key foundation in place andthen that hopefully that results in an exit at some point down the road.  

Julian: Yeah. What goes intoscaling? Obviously I think, most founders kind of know, but when you saysetting the foundation, what do you mean by that?

It's, are there certain components thatstartups need to be able to handle, say, scaling not only from zero to one,which you know, has its own difficulties, but from one to 10 is a wholedifferent. Once you kind of have that MVP fleshed out, you have your versiontwo version, version three product out in the market.

You have customers, but what goes intoscaling and, and, and creating the foundation to be able to do so?  

Stefan: Sure. Yeah. So I mean,zero for one to one is like, can I get anybody to pay me anything for whatwe're building here? And. Somewhere along the journey from zero to one. And I,by one, I couldn't mean, you could think of it as like 1 million ARR if you'rea B2B company.

Yeah. You'll have some SMB customers,some mid-market customers, some enterprise customers, a good amount of feedbackon what's working, what's not. Hopefully you have a clear sense of where youreally have product market fit. But it's a very evangelical sale to some degree,often founder led or with people that are excited about wearing many hats.

So yeah, they're closing deals and doingcustomer success and fixing the product, et cetera. To go from one to 10million, you need to start bringing in specialists. So that's when you startbuilding out your sales program, your demand gen generation program, your SDRteams and, and having folks that really focus on doing that well to, to beable  

Julian: to go.

Yeah. And what goes into, you haveexperience not only in sales, business development and, and and marketing aswell. And are they different? Are they the same? And, and what goes intochoreography of, of, getting not only, your, your, your customer's attention,but educating them to a point where, they, they feel that your products arenecessity because there's a lot of drop off points during that whole process.

Stefan: You're asking kindalike, how do we measure the lifecycle of a customer? Yeah. Yeah. . Yeah. I meanultimately if if it's not a product that they can't live without, then it'sgoing to be a turn risk at some point, right? Yeah. So you really have tonarrow in on the best use cases and make sure that the product is deliveringand it's not just a nice to have, but must have.

Yeah. So, that could be one of thetricky things because you'll have customers that sign up because. Excited aboutwhat you're doing and they wanna be a part of that, but maybe it's not theperfect fit. And, staying laser focused on the ones where it was a good fit issomething that you can build off of and, and replicate and, and grow fromthere.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Desdescribe the the inspiration behind Vendelux and, and what was the initialcatalyst to creating a company that's, seemingly different from the others, butI'm sure mechanically similar.  

Stefan: Yeah. Yeah. So, Iguess this is a little bit of context, like I've always had a lot of successpersonally.

Going to trade shows, conferences thisis generating new deals meeting existing clients and partners. If you'reworking on larger deals, six figure seven figure deals, yeah, you really needto get FaceTime and. . There's no better venue than an event where everyone'sthere with the purpose of networking, right?

Yeah. So when you go to the rightconference, it's magic. You get to meet all of your, your people in person.What, what better opportunity than that? But I think everyone's been in caseswhere they get on a plane and, dedicated week of their life to go into aconference and you land and you're like, wait a second.

I just made a huge mistake. . There isnobody here that's relevant for me to meet with. I'm trapped in some randomplace. What have I. And the reason why is, a lot of these decisions are madebased on gut instinct and kind of like, Hey, we've always done it this way. Andnot really the kind of data and rigor that you would apply to other channelswhere you can really measure what you're doing in a, in a more like analyticalway.

So that's what we're trying to help withwith Vendelux. We've built up the world's best. Database of B2B events,everything you need to know, to figure out where you should be, who you shouldbe meeting with. Yeah. And get as much value from events as possible.  

Julian: Yeah. What is thatlike, or what have you seen in terms of like post covid and the transition?

I think a lot of individuals think, whatwe're expecting, remote everything, this whole metaverse push in terms of,meeting and conferences, but, It, it, it's not the same. Right. It, it's not aseffective. It's, it's as an in-person meeting, even as an introduction have youseen a shift back into, people kind of pushing this whole meeting in person,these conferences and these meetings?

What, what's kind of evolved in thathealth process as, as people become more, more conscious of the time they'respending? .  

Stefan: Yeah, absolutely. Imean, there's nothing, at least as it stands right now, I mean, maybe this willchange with better virtual reality headsets in the future, but at least as itstands right now, you can't beat in person interactions if you're trying todevelop really strong professional relationships with people.

Yeah. So, not to say that digitaldoesn't have its place and who knows what the future holds, like we're, we'll,we'll kind of go where things as things develop but I would argue that it'sactually more important than ever. People are working remotely so they don'thave the chances to connect with their customers, even their own colleagues asmuch as they used to because people are, are kind of scattered around.

So events aren't just a chance to meetwith your customers. Also, often people are like scheduling, their own teamworkretreats around 10 pole events to get everybody together during, timesthroughout the year. A lot of the digital channels are inundated now with spamand other things too.

So, to have that opportunity to meetpeople in real life and actually take a step back and, just talk as a human is,is pretty rare and actually more valuable than ever  

Julian: before. Yeah, yeah.Where do you think people make the mistake or in terms of the, the follow upand, and, and the continuous, it's not necessarily.

Most people would, would agree. Thefirst interaction, you don't get to sell or you don't, it doesn't necessarilylead to any result that that's tangible, but that connection will lead tosomething. Where do you think people drop off in the, customer life cycle or inthe engagement life cycle that they can improve upon?

Is it better knowledge or, I'll leave itat that. What could they improve upon and what do they typically miss?  

Stefan: Like your, like eventsspecifically  

Julian: or yeah, yeah. We allmeet up, I meet a founder, we make a great connection. But then, but then what?And, and where, where, what is the process of staying engaged that you've seensuccess in?

Stefan: Yeah. Yeah. That's agreat question. And It's it can be tricky to be totally candid because peoplehave put so much energy into a three day conference that after the event's overthey're like exhausted and now they're, have to get back into reality. And so,yeah. Sometimes, in that critical window of follow up, just people just franklyare sidetracked with other things.

So, yeah, I think part of it is just,don't take it personally if somebody doesn't immediately reply to, to you. Ifyou have a legitimate reason to keep the conversation going. Not just a, hey,following up email, but you, you had, you talked about something real just,just, politely be persistent and eventually their calendars pull clear as theykind of get back to normal and, and they'll find time for you.

Yeah, you can. I mean, this is one ofthe reasons why people use our platform is that we're keeping track of, who'sgoing to various conferences and where. So there might be another event comingup, a month later where you're gonna have a chance to continue thatconversation as well.

Maybe you meet there, maybe you invitesomeone out for coffee or a lunch or, or whatever it is to just keep it going.Yeah, yeah. Always looking for the next chance. To meet in real life, ideallyto Yeah. Continue to build those relationships.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It, it'stricky, the whole relationship building process, obviously, know, there's somany different ways to hack it and, and things you can do to, understand yourcustomer a little bit more.

But I guess, for other founders outthere looking to, attract their most sought after customer, how do you getengaged with them and how do you maintain that engagement to, to deliver thevalue that you're hoping to deliver?  

Stefan: Sure. So, I mean, Ithink one of the downsides with these digital platforms is that it's very easyto do one to many blasting, whether you're, on social media, bragging aboutyourself in your company or, or even in your outreach strategy, sending thiskind of generic email to a lot of different people.

Yes, there's scale there and like,that's very attractive for a variety of reasons, but it's not per aspersonalized as it should be. So, taking the oppor, taking the chance topersonalize and, and just focus on one-to-one as much as possible, whetherthat's a digital channel or in-person meeting at an event or at somebody'soffice or whatever, just investing in the connection that you'd have,one-to-one with, with another person is, is, is going to pay off.

It may be a little bit of extra work,but ultimately it's worth it. .  

Julian: Yeah. For those whodon't know, who are the, the, the main, I guess, who are the main organizationsputting on these events and, and are there new organizations that you've seenkind of pushing either newer technology or, or new ways to meet up in personand, and, more creative ways is, we're all looking for the new and investingor, to talk about at, at coffee shops or what have you.

Yeah. Who are the main players kind ofputting on these events and are there more kind of coming up underneaththat?  

Yeah, so

Stefan: I mean, we, we workwith conference organizers of all shapes and sizes. So yeah, these are the verylarge annual trade shows in Vegas down to, the new meetups that are, that arepopping up that might be a much smaller group.

And all of them have their, their placeon the customer side. We're working with event marketers. Mega large companieslike Aug assist at Gainsight, and then, the next gen startup. So, kind ofdepends on who you're trying to reach and, and and whatnot. But yeah, sometimesa large event is the right opportunity.

Sometimes a smaller event is, is theright one. To your question on like kind of what's the latest and greatest inthe event tech space overall? I mean, we're definitely heavily investing in AIas are many other event tech platforms to. Just to facilitate bettermatchmaking. So like, knowing that you're interested in this and this otherperson's interested in something similar kind of like surfacing thoseopportunities in a, in a kind of authentic way is, is something that we'reinvesting in.

I know some of the other interviews inthe space are doing the same. To kind of just take those conversations started,started already at a place of like kind of mutual understanding and Good start.

Julian: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatwas the incumbent technology before Vendelux?

Stefan: we're the first of thefirst platform doing what we're doing.

Yeah. So I mean, there are people thatare trying to research events and figure out who's gonna be there using a lotof their own internal resources and just doing a lot of grunt work. Ourplatform automates all of that, so you can tell us who you're trying to reach,sync in with your crm. We show you all of the events.

The people that you're trying to workwith are going to be at. So you can build, build a perfect calendar, and thenyou're going to an event, you know who's gonna be there in advance so you cando your outreach. This is something that people can do themselves by, like,scouring LinkedIn or whatever to see who's posting about being there.

But we have a whole AI machine that'sgoing out and gathering all of this data as well as first party partnerships.Organizers we're, we are their trusted third party platform to like facilitatethis data sharing. So yeah, there's a lot of information that we have that youcan't really get anywhere else.

That's been kind of enabled with justsome of these. Developments in AI and, and whatnot, that just wasn't possiblebefore.  

Julian: Yeah, yeah. I can seeit's a huge value add to a lot of these conferences because, the success ofthem is the individuals who have successful business outcomes.

And without tracking that, I, I remembergoing to a few conferences and fumbling around with business cards and. It,it's almost impossible to remember who, who to keep back, who could you keeptrack who was there, who you talked to, but also, what you talked about in, inthis whole process. Where's the technology at right now?

In, in, in terms of its traction and,and how many people are on it? And what are you excited about in terms of thisnext year?  

Stefan: Yeah, so we , we havea freemium model, so we have thousands and growing quickly free users who arejust interested in tracking events for their own personal professionaldevelopment.

So, I have, I live in Los Angeles and Iwant to know about podcaster events or creator economy events, like I can sign upand get recommendations for that. And then we have our professional tier wheretheir event marketing team sales. that are going to, a hundred plus trade showsa year and need to make sure that those investments pay off.

That's on the customer side. We alsowork with a lot of event organizers who are also trying to reach sales andmarketing teams and, and they, to your point, like they need to make sure thattheir events are generating roi. So are they. Helping all the sponsors getenough meetings and enough visibility to justify the investment.

Cause you know, it's not cheap. It's ahundred thousand dollars and plus in some cases, even above a million dollarsto do a, an event sponsorship. So, it needs to pay off many times over tocontinue to do that year after year.  

Julian: Yeah. This, this issomething I struggle with, running a two-sided marketplace, and connecting two,two parties is.

Kind of identify, what side of themarketplace to invest on it and who essentially needs more, whether it's time,attention, or, or, or or, or investment in features and things like that. Howdo you essentially weigh the options on, on what feature sets to build or, orroad mapping for what side of the marketplace and, and really tackle the Susa?

I'm assuming there might be a lot ofconferences, but maybe not a lot of people attending them or, or looking toattend them or vice versa. There's a lot of people active on the platform, but.Not a lot of places for them to go. How do you know with when to invest in, intowhich part of the marketplace?

Stefan: Yeah, that's a greatquestion. And yeah, for all marketplace businesses, you kinda have to likewave, which side you focus on first. I mean, for us, we've, we've Focusedmostly on the event marketer side to, to get started. They're the ones thatare, controlling very large budgets, millions of dollars.

And so to help them do that moreeffectively is, is a big opportunity. But very quickly, the event organizerswe're kind of asking a lot of similar questions. Like, the event marketerswanna know which events to go to, the event organizers want to know who shouldbe sponsoring their events. So, e even though they kind of like one is sellingto the other, they both need data to do a better job.

Yeah. And, and there's, there's actuallya lot of like, overlap in, in the use cases believe it or not. So, some eventmarketers for what it's worth are putting on conferences themselves. So like,their annual customers summit might have. Might have sponsors and speakers andattendees that they need to find.

So, in our, in our world, there's quitea bit of overlap where event marketers can also be event organizers and viceversa. And, and so thankfully, a lot of the features we build are relevant for,for both  

Julian: sides. Yeah. Yeah.What are some of the biggest challenges that Vendelux faces today?  

Stefan: I mean, we wentthrough Covid and now we're going through recession.

So I feel like if we can survive thoseand everything else is pretty easy. Yeah. We, we face the same challenges as,as every other company right now where there's a lot of economic uncertainty.There's nothing worse. Then having a great conversation moving down the, thesales funnel.

And then, unfortunately there's layoffsat that company. Yeah. So, we're, we have to navigate that as, as all othercompanies are having to do right now. But, again, for a company, the eventspace to get through covid 19. once in a hundred year pandemic that had anextreme impact on quality personification. The rest of this is we'll,  

Julian: we'll get through itjust fine.  

Yeah. Yeah. It, it's incredible to thinkabout the, the amount of, I guess, care and attention you probably had to. To,to consider in terms of the operation of the company and, and and keepingthings really tight. And I, I guess for other founders out there who are facingthese circumstances and, and maybe are, are more externally affected likeyourself, just because, it's accessibility, it's time, it's cost.

How do you maintain, your company and,and extend your runway when things seem a little bleak for the short term,obviously long. , the like, like, like a, like a stock market. It'll rise andcontinue to rise progressively over time. But, when things are bleak in theshort term, how do you kind of stay focused on what's important and stay, Iguess, I don't wanna say frugal, but I guess, financially irresponsible enoughduring, during that time.

Stefan: Yeah. I mean,Everyone's gotta be I mean, frugality is definitely a part of it. Try to thinktwice about some of the things you're spending just to make sure your burnstays as low as possible. And then, I mean, . I think for any, any startupright now, you should assume that the money you've raised, if you've raised anymoney, is the last you ever will.

And, and so if you wanna pay the billsmoving forward, customers are the best Yeah. Source of funding you couldpossibly have, right? Yeah. At the end of the day, every business needs to beprofitable based on customer revenue and not PC dollars. So, . I think ifanything, being an earlier stage firm allows us to just, make sure we'refocused on that.

Yeah. Perhaps in an easier way than someof these larger companies that got ahead of themselves over raising in the kindof, in the, in the boom  

Julian: times. Yeah. Yeah. Ifeverything goes well, what's the long, long-term vision?  

Stefan: So, I mean, we aretrying to. All of humanity build more meaningful professional relationships.

So, it starts with events and all theopportunities at events for speaking, meeting, customers and, and, andprospects in real life. But you know, there's other use cases that can expandfrom there. People go to events for recruiting for mentorship, opportunities,et cetera. So, there, I think things have moved too far in the direction oflike very transactional one to many blasting.

Yeah. And we're, we're trying to kind ofgo the other direction. Yeah. With more meaningful professional relationships,but it can be, it can extend beyond the sales and marketing use cases. If wethink like 10, 15 years down, download down the road. Probably still a bigcomponent in real life, but you know, we, we, we'll keep an open mind forthings like the metaverse.

If, if those, yeah, if that turns out tobe the new place where everyone's hanging out as long as. A place where, humanslaw for that, that kind of real connection. If that's possible there, thenwe'll kind of go where, where the tech develops. But that's, yeah, well, we'llsee where we're at in 10 years.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ialways like to a, I love this next section cuz I called you the founder faq.So, give you, give you some rapid fire questions and we'd love to hear youranswers and, and in assistance to other founders as well. What's the hardestpart about, yeah, what, what's the hardest part about your job?

Stefan: The hardest part aboutmy job is oh, good. What is the hardest part of my job? I feel like it changesevery, every week. I, I think, I think you, you can't get too discouraged whenthings aren't going well and you can't get too ahead of yourself when thingsare going well. Yeah. So just trying to stay steady.

Think about what you can do tomorrow andthe day after that and not get too bogged down or sidetracked with whatever thedays drama is. If you're, if you're the founder of a startup, you're gonnaputting in a lot of fires, but you gotta keep your eye on the prize. Yeah. Andnot get too sidetracked. I think that's, that's the challenge.  

Julian: Yeah. How do you buildmeaningful connections with other founders or, I guess your, your stakeholdersthat you're interested, but obviously like you. Building meaningfulrelationships is way more advantageous than transactional ones. How do youbuild those meaningful relationships?

Stefan: Yeah, I mean, we, welook for every opportunity we can to meet as, so we have, we have a remote teamfor what it's worth here at Bend Deluxe. But so we try to bring the teamtogether in New York in a various retreats as much as we can kind of on aperiodic basis. We try to meet our customers as much as possible, whether inNew York or where they're based or at events.

We go to events and host customerdinners. So, we just try to, get as much face time as we can, as frequently aswe can with all the folks that we're trying to, to you. Be working with andlook, we're looking at these as like long term relationships. We might have acustomer that, and this has already happened in our, in, in the short timewe've been operational.

We've had customers leave one job and goto another, and then they bring Bendix with them. And they, they're doing thatbecause they trust us to Yeah. Help them at their next job. And we've built agood relationship where they're, they're excited about continuing to work withus. So to just kind of playing the long game with, with everybody is, isreally, important.

Julian: Yeah. If you're wereto give advice to another founder, how would you go through the process ofidentifying your pricing? And, and I identifying what's gonna be the mostattractive pricing for your customers?  

Stefan: I. I think a lot ofcompanies that are early stage under charge for what they're able to do.

So I would just, my number one piece ofadvice would be charge more. , you you got someone to pay 10,000, then the nextone ask for 20, you got them to pay 20,000, then ask them to pay for 40,000.And over time you'll learn where the the line really is. But I think, I thinktoo often people just leave money on the table and undersell what they'redoing.

Yeah. And. . If you're solving a realproblem for companies, they're happy to pay for that. And the more they customerspay you, the more you can reinvest in delivering a better product and serviceback to them. So like, yeah, it's not, if you're undercharging, then you'regonna go out of business and you're not gonna be able to deliver any value tothem.

Julian: Yeah. Point. Yeah.Yeah. It's so true. A lot of founders talk about, hiring and, and their teambeing so critical to the success of their business. And in every, especiallyearly on from zero to one, your first, five to 10 hires is, is extremelyparamount for your long-term success.

Where do you go to find your talent?Or  

Stefan: Yeah, so we, we, myco-founder and I were fortunate that we've worked with some great people acrossour careers and we must have done something right cuz a lot of them wanted towork with us again. So we've had some key. Lieutenants and yeah, and folkswe've worked with in the past that have joined us for this part of the journey.

And I'm, I'm very grateful that they'veentrusted us to to come along for, for the ride. Cause they're, early stagecompanies are, are challenging in many ways and they're a lot riskier than someof the, other opportunities that they could have. Maybe not, maybe not asexciting or as rewarding, but yeah, that just is kind of a testament to.

The work we've done with them in, in thepast. So being able to bring in great people that you've already worked withis, is definitely something that you can that can be a, a big advantage for,for founders. If you don't have. Great people to bring in then. Yeah, it's,it's tough cuz you're, you just never know how somebody's gonna work out untilyou've actually worked with them.

Yeah. So, as much as possible to like,work with people unofficially beforehand maybe have them come in as acontractor for like a specific project, even if it's a short term thing andvery clearly defined just to get a sense of. Whether it's a good match, whetherit is easy for, both sides to work together can significantly de-risk.

Yeah. And make sure you got a good  

Julian: team. Yeah. Yeah. Forif you were to get funding today, what was, what would be the first thing interms of the organization that you would invest in? Is it, is it talent? Is it,is it building technology or is it something else Completely? .  

Stefan: Yeah, I mean, I thinkwe would, it honestly, it's, it's probably both , so yeah, I mean we're, we'reinvesting quite a bit in our AI capabilities and yeah there's a lot more that,there's a lot of things that we're very excited about there, so I would, I woulddefinitely put some resources there.

We, we were already doing this, but. Aswe, as we invest in this space and get great results, we're like, oh, there'sso much more we could be doing. So that, that would be one area of focus. Andthen yeah, continuing to obviously invest in the team. Like we, we want peoplethat are gonna stick with us for many, many years.

I think that's a mistake that a lot ofcompanies make. They just kind of churn through people yeah. Six months a yearand then they're out and they replace them with somebody else. Like, that's nothow we operate here. We want people that are locked into the junior for, forthe long.  

Julian: Yeah, a lot offounders make a mistake because it's so costly to, to not have someone staylong term.

And, and, and not only have theyaccumulated so much knowledge, but their productivity, if you treat an employeewell and, and it continues to incredibly expand and expand and expand and it'sextremely valuable, long term. If, if what's one thing that you would say yourbusiness would need right now if, if you were to, if you were to have a magicwand and make a wish, what would be your wish?

Stefan: That's a goodquestion. What would be my wish if I could do one thing? Oh, I mean, this iskind of outside of our, I wish that we would get past this moment of economicuncertainty more than anything else. Cuz it's just such a distraction and, andkind of a, a time and energy suck. I mean, it's outside of anyone's control, sowe spend a lot of time thinking about things that we can't control.

It's kind of a waste of our resourcesand energy. Right. Percent. Yeah. So it's like a way, because otherwise thingsare going pretty well. I mean, I just. Yeah, I can focus on what I can do and,and, and yeah. I wish that, I wish that would all go behind us. Unfortunately,it's not. And I, know, I feel for the people that are losing their jobs rightnow, that is a, painful thing to go through.

So yeah, I just, I just hope we get tothe bottom of this quickly and we can all move forward.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. If youweren't working on Vendelux, what would you be working.  

Stefan: I can't even think ofwhat that could be. Cause I'm  

Julian: I I love that questioncause it's such a gotcha question bell or bust for us.

Yeah. I love, I, like I said, I lovethat question. It's such a gotcha question, especially for founders. There'softentimes you don't even think about other possibilities, but I always like toask it just in case. If  

Stefan: failure is not,failure is not an option. Yeah,  

Julian: exactly. Exactly.Whether it's early in your career or now, what books or people have influencedyou the most?

Stefan: What books are peoplehave influenced me the most? I mean, I, I've like live and breathe sass, so II'm a big fan of like the SaaStr community and Jason Lemkin just in, in therealm at least read that quite probably daily for his insights on, on structuringteams, kind of trends, seeing in the marketplace, et cetera.

And, and like the people that he bringsin. So, I mean, we, we go to the Saster angle conferences and meet a lot ofgreat people there. Yeah. So if you're in, in b2b lot of respect for what he's,what he's built.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it'sawesome. All, all the content, all, a lot of the, the, the content that's beenbuilt around SaaS and, and startups is so illuminating and I feel like it'svery actionable items that you can take on and implement almost, almost withinthe day that you read it, which is super cool to see.

I know we're coming to the close the endof the episode here and it's been such a pleasure to chat with you. Stefan. Ialways like to ask my guest, where can we be a part of Vendelux? Give us yourplugs versus your LinkedIns, your websites. Where can we be a fan of you as afounder, your Twitters, where can we get involved and engage with Vendelux and,and even, be a part of the platform and, and start start using it.

Stefan: Yeah. Everyone'swelcome to join for free at vendelux.com. And you'll learn about amazing eventsthat are super relevant for you and your company. Yeah, you can also, check meout on, on LinkedIn, Twitter, but we're, we're building a movement@vendelux.comso that's the place to start.  

Julian: Amazing, Stefan, Ihope you enjoyed yourself and thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Stefan: Thank you for havingme. This is fun.  

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